After our gym and swim and breakfast routine, we are going to meet an old friend. But first we watch High Energy, a two-year-old filly we are in a syndicate for (with the fabulous Ken and Karen Breckon and others) is racing - in Australia. We watch her race. Here you can too.
She is very good! She has now won 8 of her 9 starts. Her mother High Gait was in the first syndicate we had with the Breckons. She won 16 Bill thinks.
Then we were off to meet Bill's Oxford friend Swifty. Swifty is a very keen rugby man, and he had checked whether we were in Paris. We were! They were at Univ College together, and we have caught up with him at various World Cups over the years.
We met before the game (well before actually, the game started at 9.15pm, this was 1.30pm). We had met in this same bar/cafe at Rugby World Cup 2007.
Then it was a walk to the restaurant for a late lunch. It was a great walk through a park.
This shows how hot it was, a lot of people using fans.
Finding the shade to recalibrate.
More walk to the restaurant. This is typical. Bill finding the way (he has 24 hour internet and is better than me at navigation, so I don't try - and get photos like this.)
Here is the restaurant we are meeting Ange and Mark at. They chose it, they visit and stay in France a lot. They have not booked a return ticket back to NZ this time. Ange speaks fluent French. Bill was a partner with Mark (Hutty to Bill) and Ross George in Direct Capital before Bill went to NEXT.
This is Hutty and Ange and Nico, their son. Nico has just finished a year studying in France. We are the first to arrive.
And then there were more. Polly and Ant arrived in Paris from NZ yesterday.
Nico and Sophia (from Havelock North) I don't remember what I thought was so funny.
I am wearing Julia Rattray's NZ Athletics top that she gave me. Mackenzie has some tattoo stickers. Ange, Sophia and I put them on. I don't quite get all of the "All Blacks". Thank you Mackenzie's Mum Deb who gave them to her.
Mackenzie and Jackson Muir.
After a long lunch we headed to Stade de France, where the game was being played. We took the Metro. We weren't the only ones who had been at long lunch - what fun the French have on the Metro.
Rugby something on the Metro.
We walk to the game from the Metro. Look who we bump into - Martin and Anne Devoy are about to visit their son Daniel and girlfriend Audrey's family here in France.
We get a beer from a man selling it from a tap from his backpack. Thank you Ange.
Photo of some of the lunchers.
And some got to be interviewed by a rugby podcast. If you can understand what Ange says, let me know.
We take our seats for the opening ceremony.
The teams warm up and then the haka begins. The stadium holds 78,690 we are told with a screen flash.
You saw the game on TV. This is at the final whistle. The final score was 27-13, AB's were not good enough, the French too good. AB's will need a massive transformation in my opinion. Beauden Barrett is not helpful. He is past his use-by date, my opinion. French were elusive and looked like powerhouses from the beginning even though we scored first. We loved the atmosphere. It was super duper.
We walked back to our hotel. It took about 40 mins. France won and so did we - we had a great day, and night.